The Merits of Time Travel
by InnocentLittleDarkAngel
Summary: Harry gets stuck in the past (what a surprise...) with Severus Snape, someone who can't seem to stand the sight of him. He wants to find a way back; or does he? Will someone(or someones?) convince him he doesn't need to leave? Can he truly be happy in the past? That'll teach him not to touch things without knowing what they do... Rated M for later chapters. Request-fic.
1. Chapter 1

**_Hello, my wonderful readers! How are you all doing? *distributes hugs and cookies* I have started something new, and totally different than my usual one-shots! *throws hands in the air dramatically* This is a request-fic_ _for_** vampygurl402**_. Give my first requester a round of applause! *claps excitedly because I've been drinking Monster* This will also be multi-chaptered. *gasps* Okay, enough dramatics, loves! ...I forgot what I was going to say, so... *shrugs* Enjoy, please, and REVIEW! Aaaaaand...don't forget to vote on my poll for a special Valentine's Day fic!  
_**

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_Finally_, Harry thought, adding the next ingredient to his potion, the blood of some poor creature Harry couldn't remember.

It was the Friday before the Christmas holidays, and Harry Potter couldn't wait to leave Potions class, his last class of the day, in favor of packing to stay the entire Christmas break with his godfather, Sirius Black. After the Triwizard Tournament in his fourth year when Voldemort had resurrected, Sirius had been given his freedom when Harry had been questioned under Veritaserum by Aurors and confessed to seeing Peter Pettigrew, also known as Wormtail, at the graveyard. The man, if he could be called that, had immediately been arrested and thrown into Azkaban in a special cell that prevented animagus transformation. The traitor would be there for the rest of his pathetic life.

Lost in his thoughts, Harry didn't notice when Draco Malfoy surreptitiously dropped a random ingredient into his cauldron. He did notice when the potion started to bubble, however. He barely had time to shout out a warning and attempt to cover his face before the entire thing exploded, splattering a few drops on his tan skin and burning him. The teen didn't seem to notice. Everyone else had managed to duck in time, thankfully.

Professor Snape stood up furiously from where he had taken refuge behind his desk. "Did anyone get the potion on themselves?"

Everyone shook their heads.

Snape's gaze swung to him. Harry gulped.

"See me after class, Potter," the professor said softly, just as the last bell of the day rang. "Start cleaning this mess first. Class dismissed."

Most of the students rushed out, happy to leave the cold dungeons and get ready for the holidays.

"I feel sorry for you, mate," Ron muttered, patting the brunette's shoulder.

"Don't worry, Harry. Professor Snape can't keep you for too long; it's almost dinner. We'll save you a seat if you're late, okay?" Hermione soothed, hugging him briefly and leaving the class with Ron.

The sixteen-year-old sighed, taking out his wand and vanishing the messy potion and melted cauldron. His arm stung in a few places, notifying him of the fact that the botched potion hadn't missed him. He had been the only one left standing, after all. What had he expected?

The skin that had been touched by the potion was an angry red and some looked badly burned and would likely scar. Biting his lower lip, Harry decided to see Madame Pomfrey about the burns later. He didn't know what the potion might do to his skin, but he definitely did not want to anger Severus Snape.

Harry hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and walked across the classroom to Professor Snape's office. The door was marginally open, giving the raven-haired teen a view of his professor's broad back, seeing as Snape was turned away from him, hands behind his back. Not knowing exactly what to do, Harry knocked on the door. The man turned and walked to the door.

"You'll be coming with me to the Headmaster's office" was all he said. He walked briskly out the door and into the corridor.

Harry nodded and hurried to catch up.

Reaching the gargoyle guarding the entrance, Snape muttered the password and led Harry to the door of the office. The professor knocked sharply, but was met with silence on the other side. Frowning, he tried opening the door, surprised when it opened. He reluctantly motioned Harry inside and they both looked around the empty office for Dumbledore.

There was a note on his desk, saying he had to leave on an emergency trip and would be back after dinner. Severus scowled. Now what would he do with the Potter brat?

A muted hiss caught his attention. The raven-haired student was bent over a bit near the door, clutching his arm and wincing ever so slightly.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Potter?" The black-clad professor walked over, grabbing Harry's arm in a surprisingly gentle manner and inspecting it.

The burns were more of a dark pink than vivid red now, but a few of the worst looked raw and ready to bleed. Severus glared at the teen.

"Why did you not notify me immediately of your burns? I had specifically asked the entire class if they had been hit with the potion, Mr. Potter. What gave you the idiotic idea to not say so?"

Harry flinched when the professor pressed his wand to his arm, but sighed softly when the burns were slowly healed. "I hadn't noticed the potion had managed to explode onto me, Professor. I didn't feel pain until a few minutes ago."

"Very well. Now, I see no point in us lingering here. The Headmaster is obviously not available; we shall have to meet with him at another time," the older male said, turning and striding towards the door.

A shrill cry and a gasp made him turn. Harry was staring at Fawkes, who was perched delicately on a glowing glass ball. The phoenix chirped again and seemed to motion Harry forward.

"Hello, Fawkes. What do you have there?" Harry murmured, approaching slowly and picking up the glass sphere, which just seemed to glow brighter.

"Potter, no!" Severus yelled, running forward and grabbing onto the teen's arm just as they were whisked away, both disappearing.

Fawkes trilled happily and closed his eyes to sleep, knowing no one would notice their disappearance.

* * *

Harry groaned as he landed with a thud. He didn't know if whatever he had touched was a portkey, but it had felt just as horrible. As soon as he saw Fawkes again, he was going to throttle the damned bird.

An answering groan next to him snapped him from his thoughts.

"Professor Snape?" he mumbled, sitting up a bit.

"As soon as I figure out where we have been transported by that bloody glass ball, Potter, I will then proceed to Avada Kedavra you," came the reply to his right.

_That's definitely Snape_, Harry thought drily. He opened his eyes, taking in his environment. The vast room looked eerily like the Great Hall at Hogwarts, except everything newer, as if it had just been built. The House tables also looked smaller, as did the teachers' table. _Where the hell are we?_

"Potter, do you have any idea where we've ended up?" the professor asked quietly, standing up and looking down at Harry.

"Why do you assume that _I _know where we are?!" Harry retorted, standing as well and brushing dirt off his robes.

"Because you are the one who got us into this mess in the first place by being too trusting of that bird!"

"Well, sorry for not imitating you and being suspicious of everything and everyone around me!" Harry took out his wand, casting a _Tempus _to check the time.

7:37 pm, Friday, December 10, 0964.

"What the hell…?" Harry breathed, drawing Severus's attention to the words floating in the air.

"Good going, Potter. You brought us more than a century back in time," he hissed.

"_I _didn't do it," the teen said hotly, cancelling the _Tempus _and putting his wand away. "Fawkes wanted me to take the glass ball. What I don't understand is why."

"This place looks a lot like the Great Hall of Hogwarts," Severus noted.

"But _why _would we be here?" Harry asked again.

"That's what I'd like to know as well," a new voice said.

Harry and Severus whirled around, coming face to face with a young, _alive _Salazar Slytherin. The man held his wand out, the tip glowing softly. The other three Founders were behind him, also brandishing their wands.

"Now, tell me, who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?!"

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**_There! What did you all think of the first chappie? Good? Bad? Should I hang myself?  
_**

**_Snape: Just review already, all of you, before she dies of depression...on second thought, don't review. *smirks like the evil bastard he is to the authoress*_**

**_Baby Draco (cuz I felt like making him a baby!) : Mamma! *reaches for authoress*_**

**_Me: Awww! *picks adorable baby up* Who's my wittle baby? *starts cooing and walks off*  
_**

**_Harry: *peeks into screen and raises eyebrow* Um, review? For the sake of her sanity?_**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Hello, my loves! *hugs everyone* Sorry for not updating in a month... I feel like you all just now ignore my apologies, since I never really fix my problems. *shrugs* I had written the chapter ages ago, but I wasn't satisfied with it, so I rewrote certain scenes again and again, and now I'm fairly confident with it.**_

_**Last chapter, a few people pointed out that I had mistakenly said 'century' when it should've said 'millennium'. Sorry! I would go back and fix it, but if you hadn't noticed the slip, you'll know now and I don't feel the need to change the word. Something you guys should know is that my work isn't beta-read/edited. I edit my work as best as possible, but mistakes slip by all the time.**_

_**Warning for future: You guys don't really need this as you should already know it, but I'll say it anyway. I mess around with EVERYTHING, from timeline to characters to details. Nothing is as it should be...but then again, you're still all here, right?**_

_**AND...this is for a reviewer who didn't have an account for me to reply to them. Um, this is a request-fic, which means I write what is asked of me. I don't control the main pairing, so the way the characters are gonna pair up will stay, kay? I can plot the story, and the details, but there are limitations to how I can have the story be. I can't prevent one character from being with another because**_** _they need to be with that person(s). It's sort of a requirement. Though I see how your idea would be good in any other situation, unfortunately, I can't implement it here. Sorry. :/_**

**_ENJOY!_**

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_**Last time on **__The Merits of Time Travel__**…**_

"_**Now, tell me, who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?"**_

_Wow_, Harry though, not flinching at the fact that he was currently at wand-point. _They're asking questions first and not just cursing us out of existence? You'd think they would at least take our wands or make sure we aren't armed…._

As if Fate, or someone of equal higher power, had heard his thoughts and wanted to spite him, no sooner had he thought that when he saw a bright flash of a curse coming toward him and Snape before he blacked out.

* * *

When Harry finally woke up, it was to the sound of hushed voices arguing.

"We can't just kick them out! We don't even know what their purpose for being here is. You need to at least give them the benefit of the doubt, Salazar. You handled it terribly back there; couldn't you have given them the chance to, oh, I don't know, _answer your damned question_?" an exasperated voice hissed close to his bed.

"How the hell can I give them the benefit of the doubt when they appeared here the way they did, Helga? The wards should've prevented their entry, and Hogwarts also should've forced them out the moment she felt their presence inside the castle." The voice was furious, and the accent seemed to be bordering on Parseltongue. Salazar Slytherin. Harry listened closer, not giving away that he was awake.

"Maybe they're here for a reason?" a new voice offered. It was feminine, so, assuming there was no other female staff at Hogwarts at this point in time, it was most likely Rowena Ravenclaw.

A scoff, silence, and a pair of retreating footsteps gave Harry enough courage to slit open one of his eyes slowly. He was grateful he had had his eyesight corrected long ago, since now he could see every detail of the occupants in the room he was in.

The only person he saw was a female. She was short, with a petite build and light blonde hair that fell in curly ringlets. Her face was turned away, but he guessed her eyes were the same silver-gray he had seen in pictures and paintings of her. Helga Hufflepuff.

She was staring off into space, her small face scrunched into a worried frown. The raven-haired teen quickly closed his eye again when he heard footsteps approaching.

"So? What has he said about our surprise visitors?" As it was the only male voice he hadn't yet put a name to, it was probably Godric Gryffindor.

"As if you don't know," Hufflepuff snorted. "Good thing all the students are gone for the holidays, or else we would've had a much bigger problem."

"True," Gryffindor agreed, then added in a snigger, "Sal has reverted to cursing in Parseltongue, and who-knows-what else he's muttering to himself."

A giggle came from Helga. Harry felt the urge to announce he was awake, but refrained from moving.

"I could've sworn Salazar had bloody hearts in his eyes when he saw the green-eyed one," Godric murmured suddenly, surely directing his gaze at Harry's stiff form.

Well, that was a surprise. If Harry hadn't been so focused on not being detected awake, he would've gasped in shock.

Helga was silent for a moment. "Do you think so? It looked to me like he wanted to kill the poor lad."

"Nah. It was pure emotion, Hel, trust me. We all know Salazar's a bloody romantic, but he hides it too well, so he wouldn't want us to see how much he probably likes the little one. Besides, green-eyes can't be more than fifteen."

_I'm __**sixteen**__, thank you very much_, Harry thought indignantly.

"But didn't you see how the dark one was looking at the boy?" Helga asked.

_With hatred, maybe?_ was Harry's bitter thought.

"Oh, I wasn't the only one who caught that? Good. It may pose some trouble for Sal if the kid's taken or wanted by that one."

_WHAT?! Great Merlin, I don't need a past Salazar Slytherin lusting after me! And I most certainly don't want to know what they mean about Snape. Okay, I am __**definitely**__ thinking this over when I have time…._

"Well, I guess we'll see how this plays out," Helga's soft voice spoke. "If what you say is true, and they stay, maybe…."

The woman's voice faded out, seeming to have lost track of her thought.

"Yeah," Godric answered. "Maybe."

Once again, retreating footsteps told Harry it was safe to open his eyes. Emerald-green eyes, now both fully revealed, caught sight of Severus Snape asleep on his right side. The Hogwarts infirmary (at least, it looked to be the infirmary) looked relatively the same as in the future. Godric was gone, but Helga was standing in front of a potions cabinet on her tiptoes, not quite able to reach the vials of healing concoction.

"You can just summon the one you want, you know," he spoke nonchalantly, startling the young woman so badly she jumped and shrieked.

Helga whirled around, hand covering her ample chest over her heart. "You're awake," she said breathlessly.

Harry nodded, giving an apologetic smile as he sat up slowly. "Sorry for scaring you."

"It's fine. I'm just a bit jumpy. Didn't expect you to be the first to wake, either, actually," she rambled slightly, walking over to him to check him over.

"Well, I'd expect him to be awake already, and he's probably been awake for a while, and he's been listening in to all the conversations," the teen said, smirking over at his professor and snickering when the man opened his dark eyes to glare at him.

"Yes, very observant of you, Mister Potter. Ten points to Gryffindor," Snape sneered as he sat up as well.

Hufflepuff gasped. "You mean you're a student here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Wait, _Potter_?!"

Both males paled. Too much had been said. How were they going to explain their sudden appearance in the past (I mean, even _they _don't know for sure!), especially since the name Potter had already been dropped? Snape was a muggle surname, but Potter was the name of a long generation of purebloods. Harry's however-many-times great-grandfather probably was currently attending Hogwarts.

"What…exactly is going on here?" Helga asked slowly. "I've never seen you here before, yet your surname is Potter. I know of only one Potter child, and he's a first year here. You're…where did you come from?"

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**_So? Whatcha think? Review to let me know how good, bad, or 'meh' it was. Remember, loves, I've not even begun, so stick around, eh? I now leave you with this cliffie!_**

**_Baby Draco (I've become quite attached...): Bye-bye! *waves tiny hand*_**


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